Princeton resident is co-founder of new dating app

The simple greeting is one Princeton resident and dating app co-creator Kevin Trainor hopes will link lovers and friends. Trainor’s app, Hey There, which officially launched this July, takes an old-fashioned twist on the modern swipe app.

According to Trainor, the idea behind the app is to personalize the impersonal by meeting through mutual friends like they did in the good ole’ days. As where past generations met through family members, coworkers, and friends alike, Hey There allows users to add “wingers” or those who can aide in the introduction process and provide what Trainer calls a “warm handshake,” in the online dating world.

How it works:

Android and Apple users alike can download the application for free in the app store on their devices. From there they can set up a profile which includes setting personal search preferences, but things are kept fairly simple as not to inundate the user with questions linked to algorithms, said Trainor.

A look at the Hey There app on a device SUBMITTED PHOTO

Then, to start, users (with or without a winger) will see profiles of other Hey There members which they can choose to reach out to with a simple Hey There message. The recipient has the option to respond to the message, or ignore it if they so chose. If the recipient chooses not to respond, the messenger will be unable to contact that user. If they do respond, a dialogue is opened up.

So how is it different from swipe apps like Tinder and Bumble?

When looking through dating profiles of potential romantic candidates or friends, Hey There shows users mutual connections via a link to his/her Facebook profile. The user, if they chose, can invite that person to be his/her winger which gives the user the choice of having a wingman or wingwoman view communications with a match (without the match knowing). This way, the user can gain advice from a trusted friend who is connected with the match. Instead of sending screenshot after screenshot to seek guidance from a pal about an online dating conversation, it also makes it easy to keep your trusted friends in the loop whenever you chose to seek their help.

Additionally, another unique feature of the app allows wingers to be the matchmakers. Once a user adds a winger to his/her profile, the winger has the ability to swipe through members of the app and match up the user by searching through candidates they have in common.

Having wingmen and wingwomen is also a way of eliminating the online dating “creep factor,” said Trainor who added that in many dating apps, scams and fake users are common. When a user has added a wingman or wingwoman, their profile will have a wing on it.

“When you see the greenish blueish wing, it is validating a user that the person is real,” said Trainor.

By adding wingers, users are meeting pre-vetted people that are chosen by the ones who know them the most and that’s the whole idea, said Trainor.

How did they come up with this?

Trainor, 42, a Worcester native, attended Wachusett Regional High School, and got a degree in history and political science from Anna Maria but when he graduated, he found himself drawn to the tech world.

“Once I got the first taste of tech from there I was kind of hooked,” said Trainor who landed a tech job early on. Eventually, he came up with an app called Social Fit 360. The app “was kind of a flop,” said Trainor, but he ended up meeting other like minds in the process.

His team members and co-creators of the app — Todd Staples, Chad Huesgen, and Pradeep Arumbakkam all had a common goal: entrepreneurship.

“With any entrepreneurial thing people try to look for two things: Is it going to make someone’s life happier or does it solve a problem?” said Trainor. “ Or is it a combo of the two?”

Hey There, is a combination of the two, he said.

“What we identified and potentially solved with our application is a fundamental problem in social networking,” said Trainor, who has been working on the app with his team for the last few years. Trainor explained that the group believes that most social networking apps these days are based on quantity, not quality. “There is no real intimacy beyond thousands of people in your friends list who you may or may not know and are most likely acquaintances by digital circumstance,” he added.

Hey There doesn’t only aim to create romantic relationships, it also aims to create connectivity and so far, they have been successful in both areas, said Trainor.

The group of techies launched their Beta app as a test over the last year and opened it to New England singles. They created a working group on Facebook for users to give feedback. To date the group has 1400 people and sees regular activity.

Through the feedback group, Trainor learned of one success story that stands out above the rest so far. A couple was introduced on the app through mutual friends and realized they went to the same high school. “ A year later they are together and going on a trip to Aruba soon,” said Trainor.

Now, as Trainor’s app starts to take off the team is continuing to tweak the user experience. One of their next modifications will be to add endorsements, much like linkedin, but for relationships, which adds another step towards validation, said Trainor.

Over the next few months, Trainor is excited to see how their creation plays out.

“We are really proud of what we did and we are working very hard,” he said. “We are hoping we can build something pretty cool.”